Building a Bridge
by redrupee
Summary: The partnership between Death the Kid and the Thompson sisters is just beginning. As they build a bridge over the gap that separates them, they experience the pains and joys of unconditional love. Series of drabbles about Kid, Patty, and Liz.
1. Beauty

AN: HERE WE GO! (_Excaliburrr_~) The first one of the batch. I am absolutely in love with these three and the relationship they have with one another, so I've decided to publish an ongoing series of drabbles about when they first started their partnership and are just learning how to adapt to one another in this new environment. They'll all start with the little blurb at the beginning (sort of like how every episode opens with Maka's "sound-soul-sound-mind-sound-body" line), because that's the only way I felt I could tie the stories together in the manner I wanted to.

I should note that I was pretty sick when I wrote this, so please excuse any stupid mistakes.

Well, that being said, this is my first Soul Eater fic, and I hope you enjoy. Reading means the world to me, and reviews make me one happy ducky, but don't feel too pressured to review if you don't want to.

Here's to looking at you, Kid.

... ~hit in the face with a rotten tomato~

* * *

When they had first met, all three of them had doubted their ability to adapt to one another. Liz and Patty lie on one side of the spectrum in both class and personality; Kid sat on an island he had made for himself miles and miles away. It was impossible to close up a hole like that.

Instead, they would have to build a bridge.

* * *

Liz couldn't remember how the conversation had started. All she knew was that it was both shocking and embarrassing, and it evidently had no end in sight.

"Of course I think you're beautiful," Kid said, resting hands resting on his knees and tilting his head back to look at Patty, who stood behind the couch with a grin. "Your hair is perfect, your clothing is perfect, your features are perfect. You are symmetrical." He stared at her with his usual expression of absolute disinterest, his eyes narrowed and accompanied by a slight frown. "You already knew that, didn't you? You just wanted to hear me say it."

Liz rolled her eyes and rested her elbow on the arm of the couch, putting her chin on her fist. It hadn't been that long since they'd partnered up with this obsessive little twitch, and already Patty was draped over him like she'd known him her entire life. And he was calling her beautiful.

Patty laughed loudly.

"And what about Sis?" She demanded, running a brush through Kid's hair, much to his chagrin. "You think I'm pretty..."

"No, I think you're beautiful," he corrected, swatting at her in vain as the brush came down upon him again. "Get it right."

Liz felt herself grimace.

"Sowwy," she apologized, and Liz knew that she didn't mean it. "But, is Liz as beautiful as me?" She picked up a lock of his hair to examine it for split ends, humming thoughtfully. "I always thought Sis was more beautiful than me."

"Patty, Kid's opinion doesn't count for anything when it comes to beauty," Liz said, leaning back against the couch with a sigh and secretly dreading his answer. "He doesn't see the world the way other people do, you know that." It was pretty damn obvious in her mind. They'd only known him for a month or so, and already she was absolutely convinced that this kid, this kid who lived alone in a mansion and needed everything perfectly symmetrical, viewed the world through goggles of distortion. He couldn't possibly see things the way she saw them - she saw reality - and he most definitely didn't see Patty's sugar-coated wonderland, a place where _everything_ was beautiful and everyone was safe.

But Kid wasn't hearing it. He turned his head to look at her, pursing his lips thoughtfully.

"She looks pretty symmetrical to me," he said decisively. "Beautiful. Not absolutely perfect, but... I suppose she's close enough." He sat upright, and his hair slipped out of Patty's relaxed grip. "Humans cannot be perfect. It's one of the many laws of nature. I'm sure, if given the chance, I could find something imperfect about the two of you, besides the way you hardly match at all in your human forms." He looked towards Patty again, then to Liz, and smirked harmlessly.

Liz was surprised to realize that she actually felt offended. "Oh, yeah?" She challenged, leaning forward to stare her meister right in the face. "I suppose a Shinigami can be perfect, then, huh?" She paused a moment to calm herself down, but it only served to let her anger grow. "Sorry we're not _good_ enough for you, Mr. Perfect. Maybe you should just keep us in our weapon forms so you can show us off better. Then again, we may never be as beautiful and symmetrical as the _half-striped Shinigami_, so why even bother?"

Silence followed. Liz sat back and folded her arms, satisfied; but once she noted the look of confusion on Patty's face, and the stricken - hurt, even? - expression that Kid held, her self-importance melted away. _Say something_, she urged him mentally, but he was silent - she opened her mouth to gloat, then thought better of it, and the silence marched on.

Kid stood up.

"Kid, I'm sorry," she began, but he waved her off.

"It's alright," he said, and he began to walk off towards the adjacent room. "I'll be right back."

Liz bit her lip. And then Patty laughed.

"What's so funny, Patty?" Liz demanded, glaring at her sister. "I think I really hurt his feelings..."

"That's what's funny," Patty said matter-of-factly, waving the brush in Liz's face. "Sis broke her own rule. Sis said, 'watch what you say to him, Patty, 'cause we don't know him and we don't know how he'll react.' That's what Sis said to Patty."

Liz fell silent.

"_And_," Patty continued, draping her top half over the back of the couch with a giggle, "Sis knows that Kid doesn't like himself too much, doesn't she? Kid always says..." And she stood upright with her hands in their meister's signature 'finger quotes of symmetry' pose, deepening her voice as she let the brush drop to the floor. "'I'm trash, I don't deserve to live, please put me on the curb on garbage day.'" She clasped her hands in front of herself and grinned like it was all a big prank. "Right? Isn't that what Kid always says, Sis?"

"Oh, God." Liz smacked her palm against her forehead. "He's probably hanging himself or something... Come on, Patty. He could use some of your cheer." She hated it when Patty was right...

"Okie!" Patty agreed. She was always completely agreeable, always willing to help. Completely selfless...

_That_ was what made Patty beautiful. And Kid was incapable of seeing it.

* * *

Liz found Kid sitting before a long full-body mirror, clenching the stripe-covered side of his hair tightly within his fist. She peered cautiously around the corner with Patty in tow, frowning at the sight - the poor kid was completely disheveled now, as if he'd given himself a thorough examination to pick out his every flaw.

"Hey," she said quietly, trying not to startle him. He looked up from where he crouched before his mirror image, looking a fair bit more distressed than before.

"Liz." There was no affection in his voice.

"Listen, I'm sorry about what I said to you - really," she said, stepping into the room fully. Patty peeked around the corner but didn't say a thing, smiling to herself. _Some help she turned out to be_... "... We don't know you that well. We don't have the right to judge you from what we've learned so far, and--"

"People are only bothered by things they think are true." Kid stood and unclenched his fist, his hair falling back into place. "Right?"

Liz nodded.

"I had no right to call you imperfect," he began. "I am in no place to talk... Look at me." His arms spread, and he stretched his elegant hands towards her, palms up, in a manner that reminded her of the first time they had met, when he had rescued them off of the streets of Brooklyn.

What a fantastic boy he was. His compassion, his love for them that was only birthed from a month's time, made him beautiful. And he was blind to it.

"I am the son of the Death God... And half of my hair is completely asymmetrical. A being like me..." He clenched his fists and glanced to the floor. "... Can never be beautiful." Tears filled his eyes, as they were apt to do in the time before one of his fits of self-hatred.

Patty giggled against the stab of guilt Liz felt in her gut.

"Kid," she said, pacing towards him as if approaching a frightened animal. He dropped his fists to his sides and looked up at her through his bangs. "Things can be beautiful without being symmetrical..."

This made him look up at her fully, his eyes uncharacteristically wide, as if he were in awe.

It was like that had never occurred to him before.

"Personally?" Liz flashed him a sincere grin. "I think you're very beautiful."

"Me, too," Patty offered from the doorway, giggling and clapping her hands together. "Kid is very handsome!"

Kid stared at them.

"In fact," she said, bending in order to put a finger under his chin and tilt his head upwards, "you're one of the closest things to perfect I've ever seen, even with those stripes."

His lip trembled.

"Liz, Patty..." He said quietly, looking up at Liz with a sudden expression of comprehension. Liz wondered for one brief and wonderful moment that perhaps he saw past her asymmetrical flaws - and his own - for the first time.

"... You don't have to pity me."

Or not.

"I know I'm trash," he said, pathetic and self-pitying, his tone wavering with tears. He pushed Liz's hand away and turned his back to her, then slowly sank to his knees, sobbing on all-fours into the plush carpeting. "Just... Just throw me away with the garbage in the kitchen. I'll go quietly. A being like me doesn't deserve last words!"

Liz paced over to the wall and hit her forehead against it.

"I thought I may have actually gotten through to him, Patty," she mumbled, disappointed. "I thought I may have helped him! It's been a month already, and he's still like this, even with our help..."

Patty laughed loudly and, scampering to kneel at Kid's side, beamed optimistically up at her older sibling. "Don't feel too sad yet, Sis!" She patted Kid on the back. "We still got a _whole_ lotta time together. Forever, actually!"

Liz picked her head off of the wall.

... She hated it when Patty was right.

Still, they could make this work yet. Liz felt herself smiling. Surely, they could turn this into something beautiful.


	2. Comfort

AN: This one is more Patty-oriented than Liz-oriented. I find her so fascinating.

And since Episode 14, I've had the urge to tell the fake giraffe head on my wall that I'm going to snap its friggin' neck. O_O

* * *

When they had first met, all three of them had doubted their ability to adapt to one another. Liz and Patty lie on one side of the spectrum in both class and personality; Kid sat on an island he had made for himself miles and miles away. It was impossible to close up a hole like that.

Instead, they would have to build a bridge.

* * *

Death the Kid carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.

It almost made Patty feel guilty about trying not to care. It seemed that he would always pick up what she shrugged off, what she decided not to worry about and simply discarded. She could tell from the beginning that their three-way partnership would last, and yet he fretted constantly about them and their safety and what they thought of him, never voicing his concerns and instead letting them toil within his heart.

It was simple enough for her to understand: He didn't want them to leave. When they traveled he would keep close to them, and they would keep close to him. They protected him and, in turn, he housed them and fed them and clothed them, and he loved them. They were his friends and his family.

And Patty loved him with all of her heart.

Liz would look at her strangely when she tried to force him into an embrace, and Kid, in turn, would balk ferociously against her touch. It wasn't that he didn't trust this fresh-off-the-streets delinquent to hug him; he was simply not used to the affection. In fact, Patty suspected that this was the first time he even _had_ someone that wanted to hold him. So he shrugged her away, and he told her to stop being foolish, because he didn't understand that this was what people _did_. They held each other and comforted each other and _lived_ through each other. That was what partnership was.

The tension between him and her sister would have been funny if it didn't set them back so far.

There were still times where Liz didn't trust him, and her reluctance to put her own life and the life of her sibling in his hands caused him nothing but anguish. This little rich boy, this son of a God, was somehow a bigger threat than life on the streets. When they lived in Brooklyn, when they did what they felt and thusly felt invincible, death seemed impossible. It came to other people, but it would never come to them.

And now they slept on the same couch as Death, ate breakfast with Death, held Death awkwardly in their arms, _lived _with Death - the ultimate oxymoron.

Patty loved it.

What she didn't love was how difficult it was for Kid to accept her love. He braced himself against it and, instead, turned it into a stressful situation, something else to add to the incredible pressure on his soul. She wanted to take him to a theme park, or the beach, or _something_; anything to get him to relax and understand them.

One night she'd gotten up for a glass of milk and found him asleep on the couch. He'd clearly been researching something that didn't involve a child like him, and the books and newspaper clippings and printed documents made a patchwork on the table before him. His brows were furrowed with concern, his dreams haunted by this threat - whatever it was - and in his fist he fiercely clenched a piece of paper, as if he still longed to work, even in his sleep.

Patty knew what she had to do. She'd walked right over to that couch and settled down beside him, nearly on top of him, and put her hand over his. She told him that he didn't need to worry, that it was okay because he had _them_ now and he wasn't alone, and she knew it was okay, too, because she and Liz had him to depend on. She told him that he needed to learn how to lean on them like she was leaning on him, and once he did, everything wouldn't seem so lonely and scary and they could share the weight he carried together.

And he'd relaxed. She would never forget that he'd subconsciously relaxed to the sound of her voice.

* * *

No, it wasn't that Patty didn't care, not _exactly_. She just wanted to show him what it was like not to care, what it was like to be careless and _happy_.

One day they would all share this feeling of liberation together. Liz would give up to his pace.

And once Liz gave in, and once Kid stopped worrying as much, it would be the most comfortable partnership in the world.


	3. Broken

AN: CRAAAAWLING IN MY SKIIIIN amirite kid?

This is a pretty intense chapter. I always wondered what happened the first time Kid really freaked out in front of Patty and Liz...

Thanks for the reviews, Anti-Logic and my SUPERDUPER cousin. You ma-ma-make me happy. (If you get the reference, which JulesKD definitely will.)

(also, teehee, JulesKD, pardon my French in this one. :D)

(Edited JUST TO SAY that this uploading system is my greatest enemy.)

* * *

When they had first met, all three of them had doubted their ability to adapt to one another. Liz and Patty lie on one side of the spectrum in both class and personality; Kid sat on an island he had made for himself miles and miles away. It was impossible to close up a hole like that.

Instead, they would have to build a bridge.

* * *

He didn't want to tell them, but something was horribly wrong.

He sat with his face in his hands, his entire body trembling. The carpet of that strange place was twisting around and blurring in his vision through the spaces between his fingers, and he wasn't sure if he was shaking as hard as he thought he was, or if his mind was simply racing too quickly. Just a moment, he'd said, I need a moment - because the entire house they'd chased that Kishin Egg into was broken. The windows were shattered and there was glass on the floor. The carpet was stained, striped, and uneven, and bricks fell out of the walls and onto the ground.

The owner of this house had been a collector of statues, and they lay in pieces on the floor now, because the shelf that had held them upright had broken.

He couldn't figure out which piece went where. He had tried, and he had failed, so he had excused himself and stumbled into the next room to sit down.

He knew he wasn't going to recover from this one. He made an attempt to stand but his legs had weakened; he fell onto the glass table that had already been cracked prior to his infiltration of the abandoned establishment, and it made a deafening shatter as he landed on it. Another thing that was broken, now. His whole world was falling into pieces and he _couldn't fix it_.

* * *

Liz and Patty heard it. There was a silent communication between the two; shattering glass, and Kid was in the next room. They looked at each other and, frowning, raced to see what was wrong.

He was on his hands and knees, but it was different this time. His sobs made his entire body shake violently, and he kneeled atop the wreckage of the table and the rubble from the rest of the sad, broken building, _right on it_.

And then he vomited, and it was _blood_, copious amounts of the stuff. It spilled onto the carpet and mixed with the blood from his palms and his knees and the tears he shed. Blood was dribbling down his chin and bubbling from the shards that were sticking into his clothing.

This would kill an ordinary person.

"Holy shit, Patty," Liz whispered. The fear was setting in too slowly for her to feel driven; she felt as if she were in a dream. And even Patty was silent, too, completely silent. Neither wanted to believe what she had just seen.

Only when his arms gave out from underneath him and he collapsed into the warm spot - no, not a spot, it was a goddamn _puddle_ - of blood on the carpet did Liz spring forward, grasping at her heart, then her hat, then tugging at her hair, because she honestly had _no idea_ what to do.

"Patty," she said, weakly and hysterically, "that was _blood_, Patty."

And Patty just stared, perfectly silent, perfectly still, and perfectly terrified. They had never seen anything like this, never ever. And if it wasn't Kid, Liz wouldn't have cared. She had honestly never seen her sister like this before.

"He... He's dead, isn't he?" Liz said, and she swept her hat off of her head and threw it against the wall, as hard as she could. She could feel herself shaking hard, and tears began to form, bubbling over with a massive sob. Their meister was dead. He had to be. "God... He killed himself. He _really_ killed himself." That seemed like the only reasonable explanation. She covered her face with her hands and wept.

But, no. Patty tilted her head to the side and, after laying a hand over her quickly pounding heart, smiled. She was actually smiling. Liz turned to her in disbelief, having seen her reflection in the cracked mirror that hung on the wall across the room.

"Sis," Patty said, starting to giggle, "his eyes are open. And he's sayin' stuff, too."

Liz gasped, and the head rush she'd gotten from the sudden onslaught of _horror _and _despair_ made her feel like the room had gasped with her.

Kid was whimpering. "It's off... The whole house is off... I can't fix it."

And then there was nothing but relief. Both sisters allowed themselves to exhale shakily.

They didn't know what had happened, no. But he was okay. In spite of it all, he was okay. And that would mean that they were okay, too.

Liz went to retrieve her hat.

"You know," Patty said with a hearty giggle, crouching beside Kid while carefully minding the glass, "y'must be pretty friggin' psycho to sit down on all that glass, Kid."

Kid looked up at her with eyes that wouldn't focus, and she laughed, laughed loudly. The sound brought him a little closer to Earth.

* * *

"It's just what I do," he explained later over a cup of tea. "I can't help it. When something is beyond repair..."

"You go friggin' psycho and spit blood all over the place? Ew! That's freakin' _nasty_, man!" Patty slurped loudly at her tea, then let out a loud laugh.

Liz laughed with her.

"It's not funny!" Kid said sharply, putting his tea down onto the table. "It's a big problem for me. The house was completely broken..."

Liz blew on her tea to cool it down, then snorted indignantly. "Please, Kid," she said, smiling lightly to take the sting out of what she was about to say. "It isn't just that house that's completely broken."

But the joke was the sad truth, and although they all smirked towards each other, the souls of the Thompson sisters reached out to Kid's in sympathy. That boy was broken beyond repair.

And that was okay, because they were broken too.


	4. Tears

AN: I wrote this one in school, because I'm completely sick with absolutely no will to actually pay attention. So here we are.

I got this idea out of nowhere on the bus. It made me sad. ):

Your reviews mean the world to me! Keep 'em coming, if you will. It's so inspiring to me, you have no idea. :D

By the way, this is going to update at completely random times. My schedule is absolutely nuts, so there'll probably be times where I don't update for a week, and then there'll be times where I do a few updates in a single day. WELCOME TO HELL, FIC-WATCHERS. :D

* * *

When they had first met, all three of them had doubted their ability to adapt to one another. Liz and Patty lie on one side of the spectrum in both class and personality; Kid sat on an island he had made for himself miles and miles away. It was impossible to close up a hole like that.

Instead, they would have to build a bridge.

* * *

"What the Hell is that thing?" Kid wrinkled his nose at the wet, trembling bundle of fur in Patty's arms. It was a shivery little thing, so covered in mud and matted fur that he couldn't tell what it even _was _at first glance, and if it hadn't been shaking he would've assumed she'd picked up an armful of roadkill. In truth, he was a little blindsided - they hadn't even been in his home for two months and already they were dragging animals in? Did she seriously think he would enjoy its company?

Patty giggled brightly.

"It's a kitty, Kid!" She extended her arms and put the filthy thing right in front of him, and he turned his face away, thoroughly disgusted. A _kitty_, huh? It looked more like a drowned rat.

It was absolutely pathetic.

Liz sighed impatiently.

"Patty, where did you get that?" She asked with her hands on her hips, sidling over to examine the feral more closely. It looked at Liz through wide - and apparently infected, judging by the odd crust that had formed around its eyelids - green eyes.

"He was in a gutter on the street," Patty said, squishing its muddy white fur against her exposed torso. The very _thought_ of that damp, filthy fur against his own stomach made Kid fight his gag reflex. "I wanted to save him, 'cause it's raining out... He would'a drowned if Patty hadn't saved him, right, Mr. Kitty?"

"Don't name it, Patty, you'll get attached to it." Liz felt that had to be said, but she knew it was already too late to keep Patty from falling in love with this matted mess of mammalian helplessness.

Mr. Kitty meowed weakly, and a wave of pity crashed down over Kid's head.

"Go wash it off," Kid said without looking at neither girl nor kitty, instead taking sudden interest in a section of blank wall. "If it scratches you up, though, I'm not helping."

Patty let out a squeal of delight and said a quick thank you, hugging the cat against Kid and running into the bathroom with the fragile thing in tow.

"I feel like this is a pretty big mistake, Kid," Liz said, watching as Patty skipped with the sickly mass hanging like a pendulum from her grasp.

Kid just sighed and wiped down the front of his suit. It was beyond his control now.

* * *

As it turned out, underneath all of the grit, Mr. Kitty had two perfect grey eyebrows over each green eye. It sat on Kid's lap when he read the newspaper and rubbed against his face when he couldn't sleep at night, it put its soft paws on Kid's knees and pantlegs when it was hungry, and it purred so loudly and lovingly and comfortingly that Kid felt he was completely appreciated for once. It had left a warm feeling, a paw print, where Patty had first pressed it against his heart.

Death the Kid was in love.

* * *

But it wasn't meant to last.

Three weeks later Patty awoke bright and early to check on Mr. Kitty. He lay motionless in his box, his little pink nose tucked underneath the tip of his white tail. His chest was very still.

Kid awoke to Patty collapsed onto his bed, hugging him tightly and sobbing violently into his chest.

* * *

Liz had thought the poor thing was sleeping at first. She put a finger under its chin and whispered, whispered for it to wake up and go into Kid's room and sit on the bed and head-butt Patty's cheek to soak up her tears. But Mr. Kitty wasn't stirring, and Liz found herself crying, too, stroking the still-warm fur on the cat's back and trying desperately not to listen to her sister's echoing sobs.

The house seemed so empty now.

She silently wondered if Kid would be alright. He had opened his heart to his tiny thing and it had left him. She didn't doubt that this was a first for him.

* * *

And although it was a first, Kid was alright. His eyes were dry, and he held Patty uncomfortably, unsure of exactly how to console someone. He was so used to death - he _was _death - and yet...

He felt a hole in his heart where that sickly little cat used to be. It was hard for him to believe that he would never feel it purring against his chest again. Is this what loss felt like to people who dealt with it every day? Is this what it was like to not be jaded against the effects of mortality?

He ran both hands through Patty's hair or used both hands to rub Patty's back and shoulders. He told her that it was alright, that she would be okay and so would Liz, and so would he, because they would never forget Mr. Kitty, and its soul would rest with his Honorable Father, where it could spend its afterlife remembering and reliving the three happy weeks Patty had oh-so-kindly given it.

Mr. Kitty was in Cat Heaven, Kid said awkwardly, a silly sentiment, and the idea struck Patty as so ridiculous - especially because it came from Kid - that she wiped her tears and began to giggle.

Patty would recover from this, but Kid silently resolved that they would never bring an animal into this house again. Patty had shed enough tears already.


	5. Stories

AN: Another story from school. I'm still coughing every two seconds, and - oh hey, we're going on a field trip in AP US soon, apparently.

Anyway, another bus-born idea. Bus time is my thinking time. (:

This chapter is dedicated to silent rebel wings (you'd better be reading this Fish) and EVERYONE that's reviewed so far. You guys are absolutely amazing! Without your support I would be 'orz'ing and thinking I was useless (like Kid). Seriously, my self-esteem meter is in the red, and you're all making my ego purr.

Enjoy!

* * *

When they had first met, all three of them had doubted their ability to adapt to one another. Liz and Patty lie on one side of the spectrum in both class and personality; Kid sat on an island he had made for himself miles and miles away. It was impossible to close up a hole like that.

Instead, they would have to build a bridge.

* * *

Patty had started making up stories.

Maybe this was something she had always done, but Kid hadn't noticed her dedication to them until a few weeks after they'd collected their first two souls. It was as if she _wanted _him to know now; she would walk right in front of him on her way to the desk she'd chosen for her project, even if she had to go out of her way to get him to see her. Then she would hunch over her papers with a pencil in hand and scribble furiously, taking breaks to flounce around and eat Liz's cooking and watch television - Kid assumed it was her short attention span at work there - only to sit back down and work once more, drawing simple pictures and writing simple sentences with a smile of simple delight.

And Kid was overwhelmingly curious about it.

One day he decided to pull up a chair and sit beside her as she slaved away on her childish little images, resting his elbows on the table and cradling his face in his palms. He feigned disinterest as he examined the story she'd written, staring down at the paper through a half-lidded, lazy stare. As he suspected, they were nothing special - evidently they were the adventures of a giraffe, a gazelle, and a ring-tailed lemur. The three were walking around in the savannah together, and the latest image depicted them cornering two very mean-looking lions with stereotypically evil glares, their unnaturally large teeth bared at the group of heroes, their souls visible and flaring and suspiciously Kishin Egg-like within them.

It clicked, and Kid sat upright, startled.

"Patty," he said, and she looked up from her paper, smiling.

"Heya, Kid," she said in her usual innocent tone. She was adding eyelashes to the giraffe and gazelle that stood boldly at the sides of the lemur.

Kid shifted uneasily. "Who are these animals?" He asked, pointing at the comic panels that spread over the page above the scribbled sentences that explained them, an infant's picture book. Patty giggled and put her hand over his, guiding it from animal to animal.

"That's Gaz," she explained when she guided him over the gazelle. "She's real tough and she wants to protect everybody 'cause she loves them. She never used to be scared of getting hurt, but now that she cares about more people, she learned that she's just a gazelle and she can't do everything. It makes her sad." Kid nodded; he already understood, yet she moved on.

"This is Raffy," she said, putting his finger over the giraffe. "She's a giraffe. Gaz is her best friend and she doesn't like it when people get hurt, but everything always ends up okay for her, 'cause she thinks the world is real nice. She's really happy all the time because nobody else smiles around her anymore."

Kid swallowed and nodded to conceal his guilt.

"And this one," she said, running his finger tenderly along the already smudged graphite that formed the lemur, "is Little Lemur. He loves Raffy and Gaz a whole lot, and he's real tough... But he's scared inside."

What little color Kid had promptly drained out of his cheeks.

"Gaz doesn't trust him yet," Patty said tactfully, smiling. Kid was surprised by how hurt he felt. "But Raffy loves him, and so does Gaz, too. She's just scared still." She stared at Kid pointedly. "Little Lemur doesn't think he's good enough. He doesn't like the way his tail looks." She let Kid withdraw his hand and pointed her own finger at the tail of the lemur; its stripes were thick and stopped halfway to the tip. "But they work together real good, even though they just met."

Kid was silent, and Patty hastily returned to her work. Against the stomach of his common sense, Kid fidgeted; he had a question, of course he did, but he dreaded the answer...

But he would ask it anyway, because he trusted her.

"Patty," he said quietly, and she looked up again questioningly. "Are they..." Oh, how he dreaded it. "... Are they to have a happy ending, Patty?"

Patty leaned back in her chair and laid the eraser of her pencil against her lips, humming thoughtfully.

"... Well," she said, smiling at Kid, "I think that once they know they can love and trust each other without getting hurt, they're gonna be able to do anything. I think they'll be really happy some day!" She let out one of her noisy, distracting laughs, a laugh that was distinctly Patty.

Kid smiled at her with relatively content malaise.

* * *

He always read Patty's stories in secret, when she and Liz were out of the room. It gave him a look at himself that he couldn't get from staring into a mirror.


	6. Nerve VDay Special

AN: HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY. Even though it's nothing but corporate trash, I think it's a nice opportunity to tell someone that's important to you that... Well, that they're important to you.

And you know who's important to me? Jules KD, and my aunt who is probably lurking account-less, and silent rebel wings (BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR FOREVER), and all of you beautiful reviewers - especially those of you that have been hanging around from the beginning. THIS ONE'S FOR YOU.

Can you tell I got chocolates this year? :D

Anyway, a cute, short chapter for my least favorite holiday, in which Kid is a cheeky little jerk. This is a filler more than anything, but I hope it's enjoyable anyway.

Bon appétit, hungry minds.

* * *

When they had first met, all three of them had doubted their ability to adapt to one another. Liz and Patty lie on one side of the spectrum in both class and personality; Kid sat on an island he had made for himself miles and miles away. It was impossible to close up a hole like that.

Instead, they would have to build a bridge.

* * *

"What do you mean, 'What am I doing for Valentine's Day?'" Kid asked without looking up from the newspaper that concealed his face, his fingers tightening their grip around the paper's edges. "None of us are sexually involved with anybody, as far as I know. There's nothing for any of us to embrace with this sad excuse for a celebration."

Liz felt as if she were ready to explode with an uncomfortable combination of exasperation and excitement. He had to be planning _something _for them - chocolates? Balloons? _Cake_? Certainly no man would skip Valentine's Day, especially when his recently-made lifelong partners were both women.

"Come on, Kid, you gotta be planning _something_ for _someone_!" She said loudly, bending to stare at him from over the top of his papers. "Don't you know what Valentine's Day _is_!? Take us, for example..." It was risky and obvious, but he'd probably already figured out her intentions, anyway: She wanted gifts, and so did her sibling. "We just met, and _I'm_ going to get things for _you_." _Maybe_, she added mentally, giving him an innocent grin.

He ruffled the newspaper irately and pulled it up farther so that he couldn't see Liz staring at him from above. "I'm not doing a damn thing for Valentine's Day. It's just another excuse for people to spend money."

"Friends are supposed to _get_ each other things," she said, abandoning her façade fully. She stood upright once more and put an arm around Patty, who lurked beside her with a look of stupefied delight. "Even when me and Patty lived life on the streets we would get each other things. That's what you're _supposed_ to do." The two strategically leaned towards each other, cheek to cheek, and beamed down at the blinded Kid, putting on their best 'adorable' faces.

Kid made no move to indicate that he was listening, much to Liz's chagrin.

"Seriously, Kid," Patty piped, giggling. It was her turn to try now. "It's our first Valentine's Day together! You love us, don'cha? And you want super-pretty girls like us to love you back, right?"

He cleared his throat vaguely and turned the page.

"Giving us candy will make our soul's wavelengths match up to yours better," Liz attempted in a defeated tone, a last-ditch effort to plant the seed of _gifts, gifts, gifts_.

She was greeted with silence.

"_Fine_," Liz relented, and the two girls heaved a sigh in unison. "I guess we shouldn't expect too much of you yet, anyway. We're going shopping. We'll see you later."

"Mm," Kid muttered lazily under his breath, and the sisters marched out in a huff.

* * *

Gifts, gifts, gifts.

Liz and Patty stared, open-mouthed as fish out of water, at the _lovely_ breakfast that was spread out on the table, a breakfast with _lovely _bouquets of flowers. Clad in their nightgowns with bird's-nest bed-hair, the duo sleepily rubbed their eyes and gawked, the sand of slumber still clinging to their lashes. They certainly hadn't been expecting something of _this_ magnitude...

Especially because Valentine's Day was a good two and a half weeks passed.

Kid smirked, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets.

"_Wowie_," Patty exclaimed, the fog of sleep lifting as excitement took its place.

Liz was cowed.

"... You're a little late," she managed, running a hand through her messy hair.

And Kid actually _laughed_ at her.

"How so?" He asked, pushing himself off of the wall and pulling out two chairs for his company.

Stupefied, Liz and Patty sat.

"Because... Well, not to say I don't appreciate the sentiment, because this is _beautiful_ and really unexpected," Liz mumbled, trying to regain her bearings, "but you're two and a half weeks late, Kid."

"I most certainly am not," he said, and the two girls turned to him, confused.

"I... I don't follow," Liz said, thoroughly baffled.

Kid grinned.

"... I explicitly told you two that I wasn't going to do anything for Valentine's Day, did I not?"

The nerve of that boy.


	7. Fix

AN: I HAVE EATEN FAR TOO MUCH CHOCOLATE

UGHHHHH OM NOM NOM

Anyway, this chapter is really serious, so look away if you want supersweet fluff. This one is centered on a more serious look at Kid's condition, back in the day when he was just receiving the help of Liz and Patty and trying to cope for the first time. If I remember correctly, Liz made a comment during an episode in which she said _something_ about how Kid used to be much worse... And that means he used to be _really_ bad.

(CONTAINS UNINTENTIONAL SELF-HARM, BTW!)

So, if you're the sadistic type, enjoy! :D (I don't judge, I'm the one who wrote it after all...)

PS: I'm just kidding, you don't have to be a sadist to enjoy this. Don't hurt me.

PPS: Unless you're a sadist. Then you can hurt me.

PPPS: Not that I'm into that.

* * *

When they had first met, all three of them had doubted their ability to adapt to one another. Liz and Patty lie on one side of the spectrum in both class and personality; Kid sat on an island he had made for himself miles and miles away. It was impossible to close up a hole like that.

Instead, they would have to build a bridge.

* * *

Although sometimes Liz would sincerely doubt that things would be okay, she was determined to fix that boy yet.

The days were passing, and with each day came a foreign feeling of normalcy. They would wake up around the same time, and one of them would make breakfast; the others would clean up afterwards. Then they would fix up their beds and, after checking the house thoroughly to ensure that everything was "absolutely perfect," they would start the day in unison, a unanimous decision that it was time to go. They went on missions, or went shopping - or perhaps they would decide to stay home and watch TV, or read. And whatever they did, they did it absolutely together, because they were _afraid_ of separation now. To Liz, taking the hand of this half-striped child had been the forbidden fruit - and with one bite of the apple she was removed from her twisted Eden and placed into this comfortable reality with this young, troubled boy, in a crisp, clean, flawless mansion that somehow felt less safe than the concrete jungle that had surrounded she and her sister for all of their lives.

In spite of how new it was, she had a "normal" now. She had an every day, an ordinary day.

And it felt good.

But with every normal comes its opposite - a bad day, a day that needs fixing. And Kid - twisted Kid, fragile Kid, _mental _Kid - he had more than enough of those.

His bad days became her bad days, and on days like those, she really did wonder if he would be alright in the end.

* * *

Sometimes she felt that no amount of love could fix his condition.

One day she had pushed opened his bedroom door, oblivious, only to notice that the lights were off - and in spite of this, there he sat, crouched on his bed with his back to her. Her heart made a slow descent into her stomach as a newly awakened part of her brain told her that _this was not normal_, something was amiss, and he was _not okay_. Careful not to attract the attention of Patty, wherever she may have been, she quietly closed the door and, apprehensive and frightened, called out to him. "Kid? Hey..."

And he didn't answer. He was right there and he didn't answer.

She could have left. But she didn't. Instead she swallowed back the feral need to flee and approached his side, dreading and fearing what he was doing to himself.

In his shaking hands he held a knife, which he carefully pressed into the flesh of his middle finger. He didn't even seem to feel it. His thumb and his ring finger were already sliced in a similar manner, a diagonal cut from one side to the other, and drops of blood were sinking into his bed sheets and staining his clean white pajamas.

For the life of her, Liz could not figure out _why_. But she had to stop him.

"Kid," she called out urgently, gently placing her trembling fingers on his shoulder. He looked at her with eyes that did not belong to him.

"I cut my finger," he whispered in a tone that she had never heard from him before. He switched the knife from one hand to the other and showed her his palm, as if he expected that she wouldn't believe him. A fresh cut, glistening with blood, lie on the tip of each finger. "This one," he said weakly, and he pointed at his ring finger with the tip of the knife. "I was making soup for you."

She felt terribly guilty now.

"I couldn't get it to look right... It was asymmetrical..."

Liz followed a trail of blood down his wrist with her eyes. A drop fell with a wet plop onto the sheets. "The rest didn't match. I had to fix it, Liz..."

She noticed now that the knife's wooden handle was stained red.

"I'm fixing it... See?" He said quietly. And she _did_ see. Her mind felt sluggish; she looked up at him with a slowly-dawning horror, and he smiled shakily at her. He looked so proud and _simple_ even as the tears trailed down his face.

When Kid was not himself, a monster took his place.

"Kid," Liz whispered, and she slowly reached for the knife, although she was perfectly aware that he could become violent. But fortune shined upon them, and instead of reacting with anger, he shrank away from her in fear.

"No," he said urgently. "Let me finish. Please, don't take it, let me finish..."

"I can't," she insisted, forcing firmness into her voice. The handle of the knife felt moist against her fingertips as she stretched her fingers towards it. She plucked it out of his grip and placed it behind her, on a desk out of his reach, then gingerly set her hands over his, staring into his wide, terrified eyes. His entire palms were slick with blood, and as he looked down at the fingertips that peeked out at him from underneath Liz's wrist, his silent weeping made a crescendo into a loud sob. Perfectly asymmetrical... All of his crazed efforts had been wasted. But he wasn't angry with her. Her touch had began to bring him out of his stupor; rather than being upset with his incomplete task, he was shocked at himself, shocked and terrified, and _now_ he could feel the pain.

Liz gave him a feeble smile, lifting her palms off of his and instead putting them onto his back. She guided him carefully into her arms, and he leaned against her, sobbing shamelessly into her shoulder as a child with a skinned knee might.

"I'm going to fix you," she whispered into his ear as he wept, running her hands down his back and trying her best to remember that this trembling child was not her meister - it was his shadow, his demon. "You've done so much for us already... I'm going to fix you." They had plenty of time yet.

She reached over and turned on the light.

* * *

Liz smiled as she watched Kid adjust a picture frame, her arms folded behind her head. After a moment he stepped back, satisfied, and laid his bandaged fingers against his chin, smiling brightly.

"Absolutely perfect," he announced to her proudly. From beside Liz, Patty giggled.

He had insisted to her that _all_ of his fingers had to be bandaged, even the ones that hadn't sustained any wounds. But he was making progress - slowly but surely, with each normal day, he got a little bit better.

Yes, she would fix that boy yet.


	8. Judgment

AN: Hey, guys, I haven't forgotten about this story. Don't lynch me. Also, I'm bumping up the rating to T, because WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME RATING THIS K+?

We had a two hour delay for school today because there may be roads underneath the ice somewhere, so I'm in a pretty good mood. That means this chapter is going to be particularly mean. My mood is very relative to my stories - the happier I am, the more I torture the people in my stuff. :D

And the worst part is, I think this one is my favorite... Is something wrong with me?

* * *

When they had first met, all three of them had doubted their ability to adapt to one another. Liz and Patty lie on one side of the spectrum in both class and personality; Kid sat on an island he had made for himself miles and miles away. It was impossible to close up a hole like that.

Instead, they would have to build a bridge.

* * *

One of Kid's biggest lapses of judgment was not telling Liz and Patty that his body was a _bit _more durable than the average human's.

Death the Kid was a God in his own right. He was a Shinigami, and as such, his body was resilient, and he was _powerful_. It was to be expected. But, as the reserved and quiet child that he started out as when they had first crossed paths, he chose to keep his power and his resilience more or less to himself. If his weapons knew how capable he was, perhaps they would assume that they did not need to try as hard as they did to protect him. And with every strength came a weakness - the fear of imbalance, the reason he insisted that they join him in the first place, rendered him unable to use just one gun. A fault as silly as that would make him seem weak and worthless, he figured, pathetic and undeserving of their assistance. Their newborn partnership was still fragile and squealing against life, a weak and helpless baby, and the secrets he kept - secrets _they_ kept - were bound to be revealed eventually; be it by choice, or through an unexpected accident.

As it turned out, they found out about 'that one,' as it came to be known, via accident. It was etched into their minds, burned there, a scar, a painful reminder. For a long time afterwards, when the sisters closed their eyes, they could still see that terrible scene from the point of view of an onlooker, a shimmering afterimage against the black of their eyelids. And even though the horrible situation had ended happily enough, Liz still had nightmares about it sometimes, awakening with her blood howling in her ears and her fingers shaking and her heart thudding against her ribcage in a dark and endless _thumpa-thumpa-thumpa-thumpa, _and she found herself praying for him with all of her might, praying to a God she had never believed in years prior.

Liz could only remember what the Kishin Egg they'd been fighting _may _have looked like. It had all happened too fast for her to properly recollect. It was some massive cross between a pig and a bull, and its thick 'sausage-fingers' had plucked her right from Kid's side the moment they'd encountered it. He'd shrieked her name in a combination of concern and dread as the drooling human eater wiggled her before them tauntingly, and she'd been _screaming_, shouting at Kid to _use Patty and shoot, please, for the love of God, Kid_!

But Kid couldn't do a damn thing. Patty transformed and thudded into his palm and he relaxed his fingers and dropped her right away.

And the moment he'd disarmed himself, the bull-pig-_whatever _seemed to realize that he would not attack and dropped Liz - she remembered how the dirt tasted when it mixed with her own blood, and she remembered how _angry_ she was with him for not shooting, but not what the blasted thing _looked like_ - and it charged at him. He only had enough time to kick Patty out of the way before it hit him like a goddamn wall.

The next part was even blurrier to her memory than the start of the whole ordeal. She could only remember grabbing Patty, hearing her screaming in fright and screaming for Kid, and shooting blindly, thinking that she'd seen something like this on TV once - yes, a bull fight of some sort, the poor guy was gored, and that guy _died_, she remembered, the poor bastard had died, she hadn't seen him a day before then in her life and she still felt sad when she heard he'd died because it was a terrible way to die, being gored by a bull, and this kid that _loved them already_ even though they just started out was being gored, too. But she didn't realize that, she just thought of the poor bastard in the ring being stabbed by those horns and being stomped by those feet, and she didn't stop shooting until the pig-bull had exploded into strings of meat and left behind a single soul, glowing red.

Instantly the weapons reached the only rational conclusion they could find through the haze of shock - their meister was very much dead.

Patty erupted from her sister's hands and ran for their fallen partner, but her knees collapsed beneath her before she made it all the way to him as own subconscious dragged her back. Kid was twisted like a broken China doll with his white eyelids melted delicately over his eyes, as if in sleep, streams of Demon God red covering his body like decorative ribbons. Liz heard someone screaming again and belatedly realized that it was her own voice tearing unbidden from her throat in anguish, and she was beside him suddenly, cradling him suddenly, weeping on him suddenly. His blood smelled terrible and his body was colder than she remembered it.

She remembered throwing up, too. One moment she was beside him, the next she had crawled several feet away and she was puking her guts up, because she was sure she'd _felt _guts, actual guts - not proverbial guts, but actual guts, and _oh, good Lord_. And Patty didn't know what to do! Liz remembered seeing her gripping at Kid in various places and shaking him and laughing, laughing nervously and crazily because she knew Kid would just get up any second now, because this was a joke, because he would wake up soon. And in one sickening wail her laughter had turned into tears, because this was real blood seeping through her fingers, and there was nothing she _could_ do.

And Liz was back by his side again, running her hands over his hair and smearing the red all over his face, her tears blurring the bloody mess before her. Oh, God, how could this have happened? They were _just starting to like this poor bastard_, and she'd never felt the need to _mourn _for another person before, but here he was, perfectly corpselike.

They had been invincible. They had been _invincible _before they met him. She rocked his limp body back and forth, and Patty was inconsolable, sobbing and trying to wipe the blood off his face with her trembling hands, because this was a terrible reality, the kind of reality she avoided. And limp, twisted Kid sputtered, blood bubbling between his lips as he shoved against Liz, his open wounds shining against his suit.

"Get off of me, Liz," he said weakly. "I'm fine."

Get off of me. I'm fine.

There was a beat, and then Liz and Patty screamed in unison. They screamed even louder when he sat _upright_, his arms crossed over his stomach where the horn had pierced him, and he looked at them like they were crazy. He was fine. They should get off of him, because he was fine, and he only needed some space to recover from being thoroughly trampled and impaled. In her terror, Patty crawled like a toddler around Kid and collapsed into Liz's bloodied arms, and Liz allowed her to hide her face as they both screamed because there was _just no way_, he had to be a zombie or something. This was absolutely unreal.

"Would you two come off it? You're giving me a headache," he said, bloody spit dribbling out of the corner of his mouth. He used the bruised back of his hand to wipe it away.

The screaming died down, but the fear remained.

"What the Hell is going on here!" Liz asked, her voice shaking. Patty whimpered into her chest.

"What do you think happened? I was attacked. You saw it," Kid said, followed by a deep, shaky inhale. "I think this wound is pretty bad."

"_Pretty bad_!" Liz screamed back at him, hugging Patty tighter. "If that was me, or Patty, or _anybody_ else-"

"They would be dead," he said in his usual deadpan. "I'm well aware."

A thick silence filled the air.

"I'm sorry," Kid apologized abruptly. The two stared, wide-eyed. "For startling you," he elaborated. "I figured... You would know that this body could weather attacks like that." It was only a half-truth, but he was a very capable liar. Patty wriggled out of Liz's grasp and, with the awe of a child, stared at Kid.

"Is Kid really okay?" She asked him, a smile blossoming. As weak as he felt, the smile was contagious.

"Kid is okay," he confirmed, and he held his hand out to her. In spite of the blood and the grit that coated his palms, and the newborn awkwardness between them, she tenderly put her hand over his and grinned, giggling hoarsely.

"Patty's glad!" She exclaimed with a voice full of emotion, applying a bit of supportive pressure to his hand.

Liz, however, was not sold quite yet; she rubbed at the dried tears on her cheeks and frowned at him fiercely. Sure, he was a Death God - but she had _never _seen a creature sustain life with skin that pale. He'd lost so much blood that his flesh was now an ashen grey, and she could see darkness under his eyes that had previously been hidden. And she'd thought he was pale _before_.

"You can explain how the Hell you're alive _later_," she snapped at him, her relief - and embarrassment - setting in belatedly. "I kind of want to keep you that way, Kid. We wouldn't have a mansion without you, and we'd be out of the only job we've ever held down in our lives."

Kid chuckled dryly, deep red seeping through his fingers with every motion.

* * *

So, he could survive being put through a meat grinder, but he couldn't wield just one gun.

Liz didn't know what to say at first, but when he started crying helplessly into her shoulder and tearing his bandages in the process, declaring himself a useless, asymmetrical scumbag for keeping secrets, she decided to let 'that one' slide. She gently rubbed his back as Patty giggled and assured him that it was alright, 'that one' would just be let go, as long as he didn't have any more secrets as important as that to share. He told her that he would absolutely under _no_ circumstances keep secrets like that again - he was just _afraid_, he admitted, afraid that what he told them would alter the way they saw him. Patty laughed and crawled into his lap like she were his daughter instead of his partner, careful not to agitate his wounds, and hugged him tightly around the neck, and with sincerity Liz had never heard from her before, she told him that she was glad he was okay. She was _really_ glad he was okay.

Liz didn't blame him for keeping secrets. They didn't know each other that well still, even though they lived under the same massive roof - he didn't know a damn thing about them yet, or how they'd lived all of those years on the streets of Brooklyn, and all they knew about him was that he had a severe case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and he needed their help. After all, fear had impaired her judgment as well; she'd declared him dead before she'd even checked his pulse, hadn't she...?

Yes, she most certainly had.


	9. Addiction

AN: There's a fat cat on my ankles.

Oh, I'm sorry, you wanted me to say something relevant? Tough cookies, I have the brain function of a toddler at the moment.

... but I do really like this chapter. FOUL TRICKERY, I got myself to be on-topic anyway.

* * *

When they had first met, all three of them had doubted their ability to adapt to one another. Liz and Patty lie on one side of the spectrum in both class and personality; Kid sat on an island he had made for himself miles and miles away. It was impossible to close up a hole like that.

Instead, they would have to build a bridge.

* * *

The moment they had first entered his big, lonely mansion, he had set one startling ultimatum right off the bat - no drugs, legal or otherwise, were to be consumed from this point on. As long as they lived under his roof, they played by his rules, and he would not allow those "foul substances" through the front gate for any reason.

His words were like razors on Liz's ear drums. She couldn't even begin to wrap her mind around the concept he was presenting to them; no more cigarettes, no more drinking herself to sleep when the opportunity arose, no more experimenting with whatever she could find... Her train of thought sped away from the station as she belatedly realized _no more Brooklyn_; no more inhaling exhaust and falling asleep on piles of garbage, no more stealing people's hard-earned cash and, most importantly, it seemed, _no more cigarettes_. Her entire lifestyle was being overturned and, like being covered with a cold liquid, it was something irreversible that sent tremors through her body. She couldn't have her cigarettes anymore.

This was reality. She was beginning to realize that now.

Drugs, he continued, are poison. Drugs are parasitic. And as hard as it is for humans to break the habit of drug usage, he insisted that they would have to go "cold turkey" post-haste; drugs were equated with _expulsion_ from the premises.

Expulsion. Were they in boarding school? Is that what this was to him, _boot camp_?

Up until the day they met this freakish, obsessive little guy, she and her sister had been battling for the right to live from day to day, and that right wasn't obtained easily. To think that this _kid _- their meister, she had to keep reminding herself, he was their meister now - was going to be ordering them around so effortlessly... It made her skin crawl. But his word was law now, and there was no use in denying it, because that would only make things worse.

So just like that, she quit cold turkey. She had no choice in the matter. The days passed by in a sickening, queasy, blur as she fought hard against her steadily waning addictions, additions she didn't even know she had. Scenes from each day passed by her, and she felt as if she were watching a movie - there was Liz, screaming at the stupid striped punk in her misguided rage for reasons she didn't even know; there was Liz wrapping herself in a blanket and feeling too hot in one moment and too cold in the next. And there was Liz, bowing to the porcelain God while cold hands with rings on them held her hair back and an awkward, stiff voice told her that he was proud of her progress, but if he ever, _ever_ saw one of those sticks of condensed cancer in her fingers again, he would never forgive her for it, because he'd seen far too many humans die that way, _have I made myself clear_?

And one day, the movie strip tapered off, and Liz realized that she was alright. Somehow, she was alright - her body wasn't purged of the toxins she'd put there herself, but it no longer desired them. And now it truly frightened her to know that she couldn't even name some of the things she'd been craving over the past months.

* * *

"Humans seek distractions," her meister told her as she ran her fingers through his hair, starting to tie in another braid to go with its opposite. "That's why most resort to drugs, I believe. It's a terrible weakness, but all living things have their vices." He paused. "You'd better be evening that out."

Vices. This babbling compulsive was talking to her about _vices_ while she knew, she _knew _that he was looking at every picture frame in the room to make sure it was "absolutely perfect," and at the very same time he was telling her to mind the symmetry of his hair. She was getting used to his hypocrisy, slowly but surely, but _damn _if it wasn't hard to keep from saying something.

"Well, if we seek distraction, why can we get over addictions without replacing them with something else?" Liz demanded. She finished the braid she'd been working on with a decisive twist of its tip, deciding against tying it off with a rubber band - he wouldn't want to be seen with these in public, no doubt.

Kid chuckled wryly.

"You may have been able to go cold turkey," he began, "but you certainly distracted yourself along the way. Then again, you probably don't remember much of what you went through."

"I don't," Liz responded, feeling a bit impatient with him. "You're saying I picked up a new addiction? Can't you let your new partner have one small victory?"

Kid turned to look at her through narrowed eyes. He relented soon after and gave her a bitter smirk, tilting his head towards her so that the braids fell off to the side.

"Do you remember when you first started braiding my hair?"

Liz was surprised to find that she didn't, so she fell silent with her eyebrows raised. Kid broke into an actual smile then, his face softening.

"Find a new addiction, please," he requested. "This one is a step down from the drugs, but really, I'm not sure if I can live with it."


	10. Laughter

AN: God, you guys are amazing. Your feedback makes me so immensely happy I just might explode.

What, a light-hearted chapter? In THIS fic!? It's more likely than you think.

* * *

When they had first met, all three of them had doubted their ability to adapt to one another. Liz and Patty lie on one side of the spectrum in both class and personality; Kid sat on an island he had made for himself miles and miles away. It was impossible to close up a hole like that.

Instead, they would have to build a bridge.

* * *

Kid simply did not laugh often. It was one of the many harsh anomalies of his nature that made him completely unique, a black mark that made his heart seem icy, and Liz felt like a complete stranger to him whenever she laughed through his silence. Initially, she was downright baffled by his somberness - whereas Patty was constantly giggling and cackling and Liz voiced her own mirth with desirable frequency, their meister rarely laughed along with them, instead keeping his wits strictly about him. It was like he didn't _trust _them to see him laugh on a regular basis. His amusement burst forth in a series of dry chuckles when words or an event struck him in the right way, but he rarely went beyond that, restraining himself for the sake of keeping a humorless reputation. Liz was almost afraid of him sometimes; she could giggle and jest and poke at him, and all he did was stare back at her with his bleak yellow eyes like he'd never seen her before in her life. She wished, with all of her heart, that he would relax around them more and allow himself some happiness.

It isn't to say that he _never _laughed, because he did sometimes; perhaps they just hadn't been around him long enough to judge him properly. He laughed during special occasions, and in all honesty, it really was quite a sound - a high-pitched, goofy sort of laugh, something one would not expect of him - and Liz felt blessed whenever she heard it. It had the ability to fix everything that was broken within her, a rare treat that made those who heard it feel _good. _When Liz spoke and Kid actually laughed at her, she felt as if she could do anything, because she had made this straight-faced kid they had just met recently act _human_ around them, and as a result, the gap between their souls began to close.

The first time his laughter reached her ears, however, it filled her to the brim with _murder_, and she wanted nothing more than to wrap her hands around his neck and give him a good throttle.

* * *

It was obvious that Liz lacked grace.

Kid had taken to telling her that on a regular basis following their first few missions together. It wasn't meant to be an insult; it was just _true_. She lacked the swanlike delicacy many women had because she traded being ladylike for being alive, and, quite frankly, she was glad she did. Kid tried his hardest to get her to walk with a swing in her step as opposed to a slouch, placing one foot in front of the other with the tenderness of a lady, but to no avail: For the time being, she was strongly opposed to this _boy_ teaching her how to be a _girl_. It just didn't work like that, she tried to explain to him - he had to be with them a Hell of a lot longer before he started criticizing how she swung her hips when she walked.

As ridiculous as it sounded, they had actually ended up _arguing _about it one day. He had been standing at the midpoint of the twin staircases, carefully observing the floor below to make sure nothing was flawed, when Liz approached him from the left. Taking note of her sock-muffled footsteps, he lifted his head and turned to look at her.

"Liz," he said gently, frowning. "You haven't been working on your walk, have you? It's all wrong."

"I don't _have _to," she said curtly, folding her arms. "I thought we already went over this."

"I've already convinced you to try painting your nails, and you enjoyed it," he insisted, nearly whining at her. "Why won't you try walking like a lady? You sister does it just fine and she acts like she's twelve."

Liz _really _didn't want to hear it today.

"Do you _really_ think you know what a girl wants, Kid?" She demanded, sliding her hands down to her hips crossly.

"Mind the stairs," he cautioned. She ignored him blatantly.

"Yeah, because we all know Death the Kid knows how a woman should act," she continued with her eyes narrowed, turning her back to him. "You want to see me walk like a lady? _Fine_. I'll walk the way Kid wants me to." She pranced about, swinging her hips dramatically. "Look at _me_," she said loudly in a sing-song tone, skipping with every step. "I'm _Death the Kid_, and I wiggle my hips because I'm _pretty _and I think that all girls should be as pretty as _me_!"

"Mind the stairs," he reminded her, fixing her with a half-lidded stare. "You're in socks. You may slip and hurt yourself."

"Uh oh, pretty Kid is afraid that his partner will fall and break her face. We wouldn't want her to be _asymmetrical_." She wiggled her hips again, turning to face him with a sneer. "Come on, you're not even smiling?"

"You're not saying anything funny," he said matter-of-factly.

"I'm making fun of you! At least get _angry_ if you're not going to laugh," Liz said, tossing her head and rolling her eyes. "Doesn't it piss you off when I do this?" She promptly turned her back on him again, swaying her hips with every step. "Ooh, symmetry, symmetry, I'm Death the Kid and I need _symmetry--_"

Several noisy thumps and one badly bruised pelvis later, Liz found herself at the foot of the stairs.

"Liz!" Kid raced to the top of the steps and stopped there, looking down at her. "Are you alright?"

Injured, shocked, and incredibly embarrassed, Liz tilted her head back to look up at Kid. She saw him staring, open-mouthed, from where she sat, and her cheeks burned. He wasn't even going to say 'I told you so?' What kind of a guy was he!?

"You're a real asshole," she told him, substituting her humiliation with misguided fury. "A _real _asshole."

Kid looked genuinely startled for a moment. Then he _laughed_. He laughed so hard that tears trembled above his lower eyelids, and he had to cross his arms over his stomach to keep his chest from hurting.

"Stop laughing!" She seethed, slapping the stairs with her palms violently.

"Why?" He asked, gasping for breath between hearty giggles. "Now _that_... _That _was funny."

* * *

Liz had been furious, sure, but with every fit of giggles she'd felt more of her anger melt away. There was no denying it; his laughter was kind of adorable, obnoxious or not, and she wanted to hear it again.

Just under different circumstances next time. That was all she asked.


	11. Understand

AN: I always get ideas right before I go to bed, so I'm like UGH, I NEED TO WRITE THIS, and it ends up being difficult to get to bed because I can't stop thinking. Either I have to make a note to myself or I forget by morning and get all pissy for the rest of the day. My poor phone has tons of disjointed one-word ideas in its note files from 9:30-10:30 PM, it's really funny.

Edited it because I uploaded it fast without proofreading. I guess that's what I get for being hasty like a douche. :D

* * *

When they had first met, all three of them had doubted their ability to adapt to one another. Liz and Patty lie on one side of the spectrum in both class and personality; Kid sat on an island he had made for himself miles and miles away. It was impossible to close up a hole like that.

Instead, they would have to build a bridge.

* * *

Partnership was nearly synonymous with understanding.

It was difficult for the three-way team of Death the Kid and the Thompson Sisters, as was to be expected. Three people who couldn't be farther away from one another in terms of likeness were suddenly forced into a give-take relationship, the likes of which they had never experienced before, and suddenly everything was so _new, _a fresh and sinister snowfall. It was as if a door had opened, and behind it there was an entirely different way of existence; they edged closer to the new gateway but never entered it fully, timidly ducking their heads in or inching a toe past the barrier to test how it felt and drawing back in fear. Liz, with her aggressive and passionate personality, comfortably balanced out Patty's carelessness and whimsy - and then there was Kid, completely different and completely original, a hardened heart who had never had a Patty or a Liz to act as his foil. His every flaw was suddenly accentuated against their brightness, and he was newly aware of blindingly and horrendously defective he was.

His hair curved in places he could not control, so he had to adapt a hairstyle that suited its texture, and the most infuriating thing was that no matter what he did, he would always be marked with those three horrible white stripes. Those filthy blemishes were what made him recognizable to people, and he hated it. Liz, on the other hand, could pull off _anything_, it seemed - her hair could be tied into a ponytail or a bun, or it could just hang there as dead weight, and she still looked beautiful, like an enviable goddess. Did she tie her hair back? She was clearly still Liz. Was her hair down? Still Liz. Patty's hair was short, and, like Kid, she couldn't do much with it, but she could hide it under a hat or a hood and her face was still open and distinct. She could have shaved herself completely bald and she would still have the same Patty charm. He was infinitely jealous of them, but he never spoke a word of it.

And they had their flaws, too, just as everyone did. He pushed himself to try and figure out how these women worked, but they could be so damn _unpredictable_. One moment Liz would be patting him affectionately on the shoulder, and in the very next breath she would be kicking him mercilessly because his hand had accidentally brushed against her chest as he reached to examine the necklace she'd bought, and he hadn't even realized it. And Patty had a violent streak that was growing steadily closer to _frightening _him, the way she could tenderly form an origami swan in her lovely elegant fingers and smash it into a paper pancake without a second thought, and then _laugh_ about it. It was sort of terrifying.

He really did want to understand them - they were just so different from him, and he from they. And despite their best efforts to balk against him, he was sure he was beginning to understand them, and they were the ones that misunderstood him and his flaws.

* * *

Kid could stand outside of Patty's room, and he could watch her through the crack in the doorway without making a sound. He could observe silently as she perched on the edge of her bed, hugging her blankets to her chest, grasping for comfort. He could see her as she trembled from a nightmare born of actually caring for another person for the first time, and see - very faintly - the tears in the light from her window as they dripped from her eyes to her cheeks to the floor, allowed to stream down her face without an attempt at staunching the flow. And he could close his eyes and listen hard, and when he did he could imagine that he heard the tears above her whimpering, the way they fell against the floorboards with wet plops, each carrying its own degree of her every fear and dread and woe. He could sense her soul trembling, and he could think, _I understand_, but he could never say it, because surely she wouldn't agree.

He could stand outside of Liz's room, too. Her door was always left open as to avoid suspicion, but she sat near the corner just in case. He could watch her as she examined her arms and her legs and wondered where she got all of these markings and scars, because she couldn't remember. He could watch her try to recall what made them, and whose fault they were, by the light of the teeth-grinding moon. He knew that she thought they were the fault of no one but herself, and he _could_ pity her, but he didn't want to. He could observe her as she ran her fingers across the blemishes while her lips formed soundless theories, her terror widening her eyes further and further with each mark that she can't fabricate a story for. And he heard through the silence that her lungs occasionally wheezed from the abuse of the cigarettes and the other drugs, and he felt how much it scared her as she wondered whether or not she was beyond repair, if she had gone too far. He could think, _I understand_, but he knew that she thought he didn't, because he didn't have any mementos to share from the nights he can't recall, not like she does.

And he could get angry with them on many occasions, but he doesn't, he didn't, he wouldn't. When he walked into the kitchen and found them both shoveling down the two perfect slices of chocolate cake he'd chosen to save for himself, and they looked up at him like puppies caught rummaging through the garbage, he didn't yell, but he didn't smile, either. He recalled something his Honorable Father had told him not too long ago, something about a monthly cycle human females went through to maintain reproductive capabilities, and although he'd declined to learn about the details, he knew enough. He told them to clean up after themselves when they were finished, because that was his way of telling them _I understand_, and told them where he kept the milk in case they'd forgotten.

He knew he understood. They were the ones that didn't understand him.

* * *

But there were the days when he didn't really know what he was doing. His obsession completely overtook him, and he found himself wedged into a corner with his face buried in his knees, his entire body shaking as he tried to convince himself that everything would be alright even though his knuckles hurt. But whenever he picked his head up, everything was all wrong - there were too many mistakes looking back at him from the shattered mirror across the room - and he hid again. He could try to neglect the sound of the door opening and try to ignore the sweep of infinitely more perfected hair tickling his cheeks, but he couldn't ignore the feeling of arms wrapped around him despite his imperfections, the warmth of the voices that said _something _into his ears. He looked up through a gaze warped with tears, and Liz and Patty both released him and grabbed his injured hands. Liz asked him why he'd punched the mirror; he didn't know, so he looked away. Patty laughed at him, and Liz shook her head as she asked _Kid, what am I going to do with you_, but he was sure that, if only for a moment, he felt a special message pass through all three of them.

_It's okay, _they told him in their own unique ways as they hoisted him up onto his wobbly legs, _I understand_.

And although they would never know what it was like to be quite as imperfect as he, maybe they did understand.


	12. Heart

AN: Hey, guys. This was an idea I got for no apparent reason while trying to figure out how to work my new showerhead.

I finished this yesterday, but I somehow forgot to upload it...

* * *

When they had first met, all three of them had doubted their ability to adapt to one another. Liz and Patty lie on one side of the spectrum in both class and personality; Kid sat on an island he had made for himself miles and miles away. It was impossible to close up a hole like that.

Instead, they would have to build a bridge.

* * *

Liz secretly took comfort in knowing that no matter what color the skin or the hair was, or how much money was being kept within safes and what it was being used for, on the inside, all people, setting aside differences of gender, were completely identical. They had to be.

It wasn't meant to be deep or meaningful - it was just _true_. Every person had kidneys, veins, lungs, a stomach, a diaphragm, et cetera - the list of organs seemed endless. Granted, some people could survive without certain aspects of their insides, but for the most part, everyone was built the same, and their bodies processed the act of living in the same way. Everyone thrived in an identical manner; they had to breathe, eat, and sleep to function. Their bones worked with their muscles to make them walk. They couldn't breathe underwater, but they could swim, and if they practiced, they could swim well. Their flesh burned in the ultraviolet rays of the sun, and the cold made their skin rise in bumps.

Basically, they were human.

This meant that Death the Kid was (for yet _another _reason) something entirely unique, and therefore he lay far outside of her comfort zone. He looked like a well-preened young man to the uneducated, but he was nothing close to that in reality - Hell, he wasn't even _human_, as most meisters were. He was a Shinigami; Shinigami blood ran through his veins, Shinigami skin rejected his hair dye (much to his dismay), and Shinigami powers made him frightfully strong. Although he smiled like a person, and he frowned like a person, and he cried like a person and laughed like a person, studied and read and watched TV and ate and slept like a person, he _wasn't _a person. They were similar in looks and in instinct and behavior, but the fact of the matter was, he did not belong in the same thread as his weapons. He was the son of the Death God, and it was his job to preserve the world's order.

To put it simply, he was about as different as different could get.

His skin didn't burn in the sun. He didn't get goosebumps or chills. He couldn't breathe underwater, but he could hold his breath for a very long time, longer than any human Liz had ever seen or heard of. His bones were strong and his muscles, Liz assumed, were even stronger. And although he ate and slept and breathed and occasionally acted like a child, he could have a sharp, potentially lethal object run right through his torso, piercing where his stomach and ribs and lungs _should _be, and he could survive. He could _survive_, and the wounds would, in time, close right up.

Like most people, if Liz had to choose a favorite organ, it would be the heart. It was the organ that symbolized love, and without it, blood couldn't circulate - that was common knowledge, she figured, because she'd never gone to school and she knew that to be an accepted fact. She'd heard somewhere that a team in Soul Resonance would be perfectly synchronized through breathing patterns, thoughts and actions, and even heartbeat - it was the ultimate bond, more or less - and although Liz was unsure as to whether or not it was a load of exaggerated, cheesy garbage, she was curious. She knew Kid had blood - oh, she knew it and knew it well, because his blood went _everywhere _more often than not, it was ridiculous - but she had to wonder if he had a heart to pump it hidden within all of the mystery of the Shinigami's anatomy. She'd never really taken the chance to seek out a pulse underneath his clothing and skin, lest he shrink away from her - and if he did have a heart, were their hearts really beating at the same time, or was it nothing more than a fairytale?

She had decided to ask him about his body one day when she was feeling particularly bold, because the curiosity was completely overwhelming. He'd been sitting on the couch reading a magazine while Patty slumbered the day away on the chair across from him when Liz had approached him with her question, acting innocent and playing dumb. Casual and lax, as if she were probing him about the weather, she sidled up behind him and asked him bluntly if there was a heart involved somewhere in his anatomy.

"Does it matter?" He'd replied, still reading intently - or pretending to, at least.

"I guess not," she admitted. "I'm just curious, is all. It doesn't really matter, no."

"Would you think less of me if I told you that I didn't have a heart?" He asked without looking at her. Liz frowned.

"No," she replied after a moment of thought, though she wasn't entirely sure that she'd told him the truth.

"Well, I don't know what my body is made of. No one has ever done an autopsy on a Shinigami." He still refused to look over his shoulder at her, instead turning the page of his magazine and sighing lightly. "Besides, you said so yourself - it doesn't matter," he said in a tone of finality, falling silent.

Discouraged, Liz considered the topic dropped and left him be, retreating into the kitchen. She didn't have the power to probe him about it; it was his choice, after all... He didn't have to tell her if he didn't want to. Besides, maybe he was right about the enigma of the Shinigami - perhaps he honestly didn't know what he was made of.

Yeah, and maybe tortoises were developing wings.

* * *

She'd almost forgotten about her heart escapades when she saw Kid sleeping on the couch one day, perfectly vulnerable. _Something_ had reminded her of her previous curiosity, and carefully - quietly - she decided to tip-toe over to the sleeping boy, her footsteps muffled by her socks. She would only try to locate the center point of his heartbeat for a second - just a second! - and if he didn't have one, well, she had her answer.

She hesitated once she'd reached him, momentarily wondering if she really _wanted _to know about a matter that he'd made so personal. A lack of a heart would make him less human to her, no matter how much she respected him, and it would make it infinitely more difficult to determine whether or not he was really dead during the many occasions where he collapsed in a spray of blood. In the end, she figured that it was better to know now, just in case she checked _later, _when he was near death, and declared him dead right then and there due to her own ignorance - that was how she justified her invasiveness - and with that, she put her hand on his chest and held her breath.

He didn't stir. Liz listened and focused intently, as still and as quiet as she could make herself. She couldn't feel a thing.

But there _was _something there. She hadn't felt it at first, but, sure enough, there was a flutter underneath her fingertips, delicate and barely traceable, like the breath of something small and fragile. Confused as to why it was so difficult it was to detect, Liz thought for a moment; then, in a sudden realization, she pressed the fingers of her other hand to her neck.

Their heartbeats were synchronized.

Satisfied, Liz took her hand off of his chest and laid it on his forehead. She didn't care if she'd imagined it, or if the pulse she'd felt was her own reflected unto him in desperation - she had the answer that she'd wanted to have all along. That was enough for her.

But just to be sure, she would check Patty next.


	13. Flu

AN: I felt the need to update before I went on vacation. Real life has decided to suck me into a black abyss as of late, so it might be a little poo. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

* * *

When they had first met, all three of them had doubted their ability to adapt to one another. Liz and Patty lie on one side of the spectrum in both class and personality; Kid sat on an island he had made for himself miles and miles away. It was impossible to close up a hole like that.

Instead, they would have to build a bridge.

* * *

Initially, Kid had been eerily unfamiliar with the ways of human illness. He'd never been that close to humans before allowing the sibling weapons from Brooklyn into his home, so he'd never bothered to examine the mannerisms and weaknesses of their species, shrugging their susceptibility to disease off as a trait overlooked by the process of their evolution that nothing but time could help. He accepted the fact that they succumbed to the warfare of germs much easier than any Shinigami ever would with ease and kept their fragility in mind, but he had no idea that the affects of a simple influenza bug could very severe, and a string of the rhinovirus can look like Hell on the outside of the human body - it was merely a matter of being ignorant. Being sick, he had always thought, was just as it sounded: If a human felt sick, they could sleep it off and get over it. His father had told him how being sick felt, but no one had ever warned him about how being sick _looked_.

His fear was therefore understandable when Patty came home from a day of shopping with a weak, limp, and groaning Liz clinging desperately about her waist, her feet dragging like the limbs of something half-dead. Her face was a pallid grey, her normally bright cheeks washed over with a sickly hue that was nearly a freakish green in coloration. None of her muscles seemed to be functioning well enough to keep her own weight up, and he could see even from across the room that she was incapable of supporting herself, instead relying entirely on her sister for transportation. To Kid, she looked about ready to melt into a pasty concoction on the floor and, being entirely unfamiliar with her symptoms, he instantly felt a raw, feral panic that lanced him speedily to his feet.

"Patty!" He cried, scrambling around the table and bee-lining for them. His eyes had gone wide with horror at the sight of his ailing partner as he examined her carefully - was she bleeding? Were her bones broken? He couldn't tell! "What's wrong? What happened to Liz? Did someone hurt her?" He extended his fingers to touch her and search for any obvious injuries, but Patty pulled Liz out of his reach like she was something of great monetary value, grinning deviously.

"No, it's okay!" She announced, punctuating her declaration with a booming laugh. She chose not to elaborate on what had happened and instead continued walking across the floor, ignoring the poor boy blatantly. Frantic and afraid, Kid made glanced down to ensure that blood hadn't pooled underneath their feet and, after confirming that neither of them had any apparent open and leaking wounds, he tried again.

"Why does she look so uncomfortable? Was there an accident? Did she do this to herself?" He demanded, firing questions rapidly as he followed behind them. His fingers (were they shaking?) stretched to touch Liz's back (yes, they were shaking) - and, as if she'd read his mind, Patty did a little hop-skip out of his reach, Liz's pseudo-corpse bumping right along with her.

"Shoo, fly, you're buggin' me," she replied cheerfully, simply. Her unwillingness to comply with his requests was becoming physically painful to him, and for a moment he considered grabbing her by the throat and giving her a good throttle, if only out of sheer annoyance. He wasn't exactly used to the verbal abuse, either, and her cruelty towards him only served to puzzle him even deeper. Liz mumbled something in tone guised by misery, but her vocalizations went unnoticed as the trio began to painstakingly make their way up the steps, each member of the party a bit uneasy and off-balance in their own, special ways. Kid stood behind Liz with his palms out in case Patty dropped her - but Patty _didn't_ drop her, and the feeling of being unneeded was somehow incredibly hurtful to him. He was completely unused to any sort of rejection.

"Will you at least tell me if she's alright?" He asked, forcing his tone to be level lest he give his weapon the angry response she desired so fervently. His patience was slipping irrevocably further away from his grasp with every question Patty dodged, however, and he knew he couldn't keep his guise up for long. "She looks like a wreck," he added in an attempt to communicate his concern to her, hoping that his feelings would sway her unnecessary adamancy.

Patty said nothing. That bout of silence proved to be too much for him, and something within him snapped in an instant, the act he'd worked so hard to build up collapsing under the pressure of the situation. "This isn't _funny, _Patty! _Just tell me_!" Kid demanded, fully aware of the lunacy that had edged into his voice. He was new to this whole _caring _thing, as were they - was she really finding his cluelessness that funny? She probably would have told him by now if it was serious; yet, there was Liz, looking about ready to deposit her stomach contents on the glassy surface of his flooring, and he had _no idea why_. _She could at least tell me that Liz is alright_, he fumed mentally as his eyes bored holes into the back of her head, his fists grasping the air by his sides. _That's the least she could do. It's all I want to know_. That, and he wanted to know whose face he had to break for doing this - if anyone was at fault. Really, he had no idea.

Patty chose that moment to turn around and face him. Her grin was juxtaposed comically against Liz's grimace of despair.

"You're stupid, Kid!" She exclaimed, as if that statement would somehow clarify things for him. When he continued to look impatient and unhappy, she heaved a sigh, adjusting her grip on her sister with a roll of her eyes. (Liz had begun to slip at some point and her knees nearly reached the floor by the time her caretaker had spotted the error, poor thing.) "Liz is sick. That's it. _Dummy_." She paused to gauge his reaction, then rolled her eyes again. "Flu-bug. _Geez_."

Kid had to blink back his surprise.

"Flu-bug?" He parroted. The flu, as in influenza, as in the human illness? That was _it_? Liz looked _dead_.

"Flu-bug," Patty confirmed, shifting again. Kid the anxiety and rage he'd felt in the moments prior rush out of his body with a deep sigh of relief.

"You could have told me that earlier," he said, folding his arms indignantly. He was a little embarrassed now - he'd certainly thrown quite the fit. "All I wanted to know was if Liz was okay."

"It's fun to see you get all huffy," Patty replied, giggling. "You look like a chicken." She left him gaping at her in disbelief as she pranced into Liz's room, humming a bright and happy tune that echoed through their vacant halls.

* * *

Although Patty had told him that she would break four of the fingers on his left hand and only three on the right if he snuck Liz's room while she was sleeping, Kid couldn't help himself. She'd looked so _helpless _before, when she was being carried across the living room and up the steps... Her state was nothing short of frightening to him. He peeked through the crack in the doorway from the hall and, with the carefulness of a child sneaking into the kitchen for a midnight snack, slipped inside, his breathing stilled. His footsteps sounded unnaturally loud and cut through the silence like many tiny daggers, but he wasn't afraid of waking Liz up, not in the least - she was sleeping like the dead. Knowing that Patty would respond to even the slightest sound of chair legs against the floorboards, he eased a seat from the corner of the room to Liz's bedside without making a sound and sat heavily, folding his arms on his lap.

_Flu bug_, Patty had told him - and with such confidence! Frankly, he didn't believe her, and nothing would convince him otherwise. He had been sizing them up since the moment he'd seen them and, so long as his research was correct, someone with the strength of these two would never fall so unquestionably to the wrath of a simple virus. But as he gazed down at Liz's face, noting the way she seemed so vulnerable and green with nausea, he couldn't help but question his own theory. This was the woman who he had just recently let into his home, one of two; this was the woman who pulled him from the chasm of hysteria, the woman who still sometimes threatened to leave when she didn't get her way, the woman who begrudgingly accepted his soul's wavelength in a way that was bitter but getting better every day, just like he was. He was one of his two pillars, and without two, one couldn't stand.

Flu bug.

He leaned down and placed his arms over the bed, resting his chin on the tops of his hands. She seemed so ill even in sleep, and he couldn't do anything to help - useless, unneeded. To think the gun that faced his terrifying disorder with a brave face, the gun that he'd pulled out of a dog-eat-dog world, could fall so easily to something he could see only with the aid of a powerful microscope... He closed his eyes and let his thoughts lead him, and he fell asleep within a matter of moments, dreaming of healthier days in which he could help everyone he was just beginning to love.

Patty pushed the door open with the back of her hand and smiled, silhouetted by the light shafting in from the halls. Liz cracked an eye open at the sound, smirking at her sibling and craning her neck so that her temple pointed towards their meister.

"Thought he wasn't allowed in here," she said, scooting into a more upright position. It was a 24 hour flu to them and a decade flu to her, but at least she was beginning to feel better. The puking had stopped, at least.

"Don't talk so loud, Sis," Patty scolded, smothering a giggle with her palms. "He's sleepin'." She crept into the room with exaggerated sneaking posture, sliding up beside the bed and laying a hand across her sister's forehead.

"Sis feels a little less warm," she said, nodding her approval into the darkness. Liz smiled against the hand, though it was clear that the gesture was directed at their meister.

"He was getting ready to punch some sucker out, wasn't he?" Liz asked. Patty giggled again, nodding.

"Flu bug, the bastard," she said in a deep voice that was probably meant to imitate Kid's usual monotone. "I oughta give the son-of-a-bitch a piece of my mind."

They had refused to let him in at first, but she would let him stay - besides, he'd probably never seen the flu before, anyway. It was just his typical, knee-jerk reaction to things that were out of the ordinary: He needed to understand.

It meant a lot to her. Flu bug - the bastard. He would've done something if he could. That was all that mattered.


End file.
